Gumbo
HRinNH
1,432 Posts
If there such a thing as a vegetarian gumbo soup, does anyone have a recipe? Spicier the better!
HRinNH
1,432 Posts
Comments
1 c. Flour
2 lbs shrimp (fresh or frozen)
1 c. vegetable oil
1 lb Audouille sausage (none other!)
1 lb. okra
1 bay leaf
1 8oz. can tomatoes
tobasco sauce
2 qts. fish stock or water
1 lg. onion
fresh crab meat
1/2 bell pepper
1 pt. oysters
2 stalks celery
salt
pepper
worcestershire sauce
Carefully make a roux. Mix oil & flour and then turn on heat and stir constantly 'til golden brown. Chop onion, pepper & celery & saute with 1 T. oil in gumbo pot.
After vegetables soften & turn translucent, add okra & saute a few minutes longer. Add tomatoes, bay leaf & fish stock or water.
Increase heat & bring mixture to low boil, cut sausage in 1/4" slices and brown. Add sausage to pot. Let it come to boil and add roux. Stir thoroughly & let simmer 30 minutes. Add crab meat & cook for another 10 minutes.
Add shrimp and oysters & return gumbo to a slight boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and wait 15 minutes to serve up over rice or as is.
Notice: If you want vegetarian gumbo, there ain't no such thing unless you want to heat up some water and pass a tomato through it gently.
Saltines, Ritz or other crackers required. Southern cornbread is an acceptable exchange.
Beer, Cold-Iced-tea with lemon, or white wine compliments.
The only true substitute for not finding okra in the stores in your area is to move to the South. The reason okra is so popular in gumbo, and not to sound indelicate, is because it is slimy. I can think of no other reason. I thought the question was posed from a vegetarian perspective, ergo my comments about unreal gumbo without meat.
I would think that you can find frozen, sliced okra in any state, but I'm not sure. I don't know of a vegetable that's ever substituted for okra in real gumbo. When you go to doing a bunch of substituting, you're moving in the direction of soup. I think my January Soup recipe is posted elsewhere.
Sure, you can put any kind of meat in the world in gumbo, but the two things you cannot do without and still have gumbo is a roux and slow cooking. gumbo in Arkansas contains road-kill possum.
Roadkill up here this time of year would most likely be venison. We already have a freezer of that in the non-gravelly version.x:9
Due to my poor frying skills, it didn't turn out. We did discover that chickens LOVE okra, though, so not all was lost. And believe me, half of a row in a small garden can produce a lot of okra.